YANKEE STADIUM frames these blasts better than any place on earth, yet Cliff Floyd couldn’t take advantage of the full vista. The ball had jumped off the sweet spot of Floyd’s bat like a Superball bounding off a trampoline, which is the best feeling a hitter can hope for.

Only Floyd couldn’t enjoy his profession’s finest panorama, because he couldn’t pick up the ball. He knew he hit it well. He hoped he hit it fair. He searched the impossibly blue Bronx sky, finally spotting the ball as it sailed over the yellow W.B. Mason sign, over the blue-and-white Kyocera strikeout counter, over the red Modell’s sign.

Wherever the ball landed, it was going to give the Mets a quick lead against the Yankees. Whenever it landed, Floyd was going to enjoy the 360-foot journey that would follow. Why not? He’d earned it. But he was going to be snappy about it.

“I enjoy running, not getting hit,” Floyd said a few moments after the Mets completed a 10-3 dismantling of the Yankees yesterday, ensuring that for one day, at least, New York’s baseball fortunes would reside exactly at sea level, the Mets rising to 37-37 with a bullet, the Yankees tumbling to 37-37 like a boulder.

“Some guys like to take a long look at their home runs. That’s their business. Me, I want to run so I don’t have to worry about other consequences.”

Floyd laughed out loud at that. This has been a summer too long in coming for the Mets’ left fielder, who always has deserved so much more than he’s gotten from his career, whose long litany of physical calamity has robbed him of close to 90 games during his Mets career, turned him from speedster to plodder, his body a landscape of rehab and resilience.

“All I want to do,” he said again yesterday, not for the first time, “is stay healthy and stay in the lineup. It’s all I really want.”

His first two years as a Met, Floyd was too often a lonely voice of passion in a room-temperature locker room. Then he endured an offseason of endless speculation. The Cubs always were the leaders in the club- house, with Floyd the bait in a Sammy Sosa deal.

Right now, it’s terrifying to think where the Mets might be if the teams had gotten around to pulling the trigger on that trade.

Floyd’s two homers yesterday give him 20 on the year, putting him well on pace to shatter his career best of 31, set in 2001 with the Marlins. His four RBIs pushed him to 51, almost halfway to his personal high of 103, also in ’01. He has three homers already in this series against the Damn Shame Yankees.

In a year when the Mets’ offense has been inconsistent in the best of times, invisible in the worst of times, Floyd has been a constant, and deserves a place on the NL All-Star team that might be difficult to procure, given the ballot-box leads currently held by Mike Piazza at catcher and Carlos Beltran in the outfield.

“He’s been an All-Star in every sense of the word,” Willie Randolph said. “He’s been big for us almost every day he’s been in the lineup.”

This isn’t a new role for Floyd, either. All across the past two years, he’s suffered through every Mets losing streak, even those that didn’t coincide with his various exiles on the disabled list. His always was a voice of badly needed perspective.

“I completely understand that I’m lucky to have this life, that it’s a blessing to be playing baseball,” Floyd said the day before his bum Achilles forced him to shut down midway through the summer of 2003. “Somewhere down the road, and I’m signed here for four years, we’re going to be in the playoffs, and I’m not going to be 100 percent. And I’m not going to let a banged-up pinky or something keep me out of the game. Not then. Not after playing through what I’ve played through in my time here.”

Maybe this can be the payoff for Cliff Floyd. He’s waited for it. And he’s earned it. Every bit of it.

Monument-al

With a 10-2 win yesterday at Yankee Stadium, the Mets assured themselves their first winning series among the monuments in The Bronx since the interleague Subway Series started in 1997.

Here’s a look at the Mets’ record at the Stadium:

Year Record

1997 1-2

1999 1-2

2000 1-2

2001 1-2

2002 1-2

2003 0-3

2004 1-2

2005 2-0

Note: Teams played three times in 1997 and 1998. There were no games at Yankee Stadium in ’98. Two, three-game series started in 1999.